Dolphins’ Adam Gase learned crisis management under dad & Nick Saban

DAVIE—One of the major changes when a coach goes from coordinator to the head job is having to navigate a broad range of issues on and off the field. Dolphins coach Adam Gase has encountered quite a few in his first year and a half in charge.

Gase’s challenges have included losing his starting quarterback twice, all the Hurricane Irma-related problems and, most recently, having to remove an offensive line coach after an unseemly video surfaced.

It takes more than X’s and O’s to steer a team through things like that, and Gase’s main education in that field came from watching his father Art in the business world and his seven years coaching under Nick Saban. When asked specifically about what he learned from his dad, Gase gave revealing insight into what makes him the way he is.

“The thing that comes to mind for me with him is I just remember he never shied away from anything,” Gase said today. “He always met it head on. He never looked for somebody else to try to fix something. I think I always appreciated the fact that he was always trying to lead the charge.”

He also said, “I think a little bit has to do watching how my dad operated… dealing with anything that would come up and jumping to the forefront. I’m the one in charge. I’ve got to handle it.”

That’s clearly been Gase’s mindset since taking over the Dolphins in January 2016, and he’s lived up to it. One thing players have consistently credited him for is being direct and steady.

If that sounds a little bit like Saban, it should. Gase was a student staffer at Michigan State when Saban coached there and followed him to LSU for three seasons as an assistant.

“I don’t remember anything quite happening every week, but watching him, how he always handled things where he dealt with a situation and had to get back to work, had to move on to the next thing,” Gase said.